Starting with Part 1 of this series, I introduced the idea that free software is expensive to give away.

For example, in 2000, the Debian distribution would have cost nearly 1.9 billion dollars to re-write from the ground up.

It’s been almost 8 years since that report was generated, and Debian has somewhat faded from the limelight. Ubuntu has taken the lead as the most-used desktop Linux distribution since then, and I would like to roughly calculate how much Ubuntu costs to give away for no charge.

I will outline and detail my method and solution to this question in 8 steps: Continue reading →

Little known fact: The Ubuntu distribution is now includes 23,164 packages.

How much did all of these packages actually cost to make? Well thanks to the Constructive Cost Model, (COCOMO) we can find out. COCOMO estimates how much it costs to write x number of lines of code, based on complexity of the project as well as how collaboration takes place (ie over the internet vs in an office), and many other factors. Then you get a ballpark figure of how much the software cost to develop. Continue reading →

Now is your chance. For the first time ever, fsckin w/ linux is recruiting guest bloggers.

In-depth expertise with Linux is NOT required. In fact, the less you know about Linux, the better! I’m not planning on walking anyone through an installation, but if you think you have the guts to give a try for the first time and write about it, I’ll make sure you have the instructions needed to succeed. Continue reading →

Ok, this is completely satirical, cynical and NOT serious at all. It’s meant to make you laugh. If you don’t laugh, you may have DVHAD (Digg Visitor Humor Absence Disorder). You may need to seek professional therapy. I can recommend a good psychiatrist if you’d like.

Have you ever used PeerGuardian for Windows? Well good news my friend, there’s a Linux alternative available.

PeerGuardian is a program that blocks companies such as the RIAA and their affiliates (such as Media Defender) from connecting to your computer when you are running P2P software. This is not foolproof by any means, but certainly a step in the right direction.

When I used Windows, one of the programs I used to protect my online privacy was PeerGuardian. Now that I’m using Ubuntu full-time, I’d like to find an alternative.

A quick google search found that PeerGuardian actually has a Linux client, but the installation is far more difficult than another program I found called MoBlock. Not only does it come pre-setup with most of the Bluetack blocking lists, the same ones that PeerGuardian uses, but it will also utilize the eMule ipfilter.dat file format, if you’re looking for that.

Ok, now I know we’re looking at the rest of this document and saying,

“Sh!t Wayne, this looks complicated.”

It’s actually really easy if you follow it step by step, and if you have any questions, feel free to comment and I’ll do my best to help you out.

Now it’s installed! Congratulations. Now we need to configure the program so that HTTP (website) traffic is unfiltered. This program likes to be as paranoid as possible to start out with, which can be a good thing for some people.

I was searching around and I’ve compiled a list of *nix errors found on an old newsgroup archive, reformatted for your reading pleasure.

Which one is your favorite?

“Values of B will give rise to dom.”

FATAL system error #nnnn CAUSE: We should never get here!

OHHHH…. I give up Core dumped

COMPILER UNABLE TO ABORT

AN ATTEMPT WAS MADE TO WRITE BEYOND THE MAXIMUM ASSIGNED SPACE FOR A MASS STORAGE FILE. AN ATTEMPT WAS MADE TO EXPAND A MASS STORAGE FILE BEYOND THE MAXIMUM ASSIGNED SPACE. A READ FUNCTION FOR A MASS STORAGE FILE SPECIFIED AN ADDRESS (WORD 5 OF THE I/O PACKET) THAT IS BEYOND THE MAXIMUM ASSIGNED SPACE. A READ OR WRITE FUNCTION FOR A WORD-ADDRESSABLE MASS STORAG FILE SPECIFIED A MASS STORAGE ADDRESS (WORD 5 OF THE I/O PACKET) AND A TOTAL DATA COUNT. WHEN THE MASS STORAGE ADDRESS IS ADDED TO THE TOTAL DATA COUNT, THE RESULTING ENDING MASS STORAGE ADDRESS IS GREATER THAN 2*/35-1. A READ OR WRITE FUNCTION FOR A SECTOR-FORMATTED MASS STORAGE FILE SPECIFIED A MASS STORAGE ADDRESS (WORD 5 OF THE I/O PACKET) THAT IS GREATER THAN 2*/30-1. ADI ONLY: REFERENCE ATTEMPTED BEYOND THE ASSIGNED FILE WHEN THE FILE IS CONFIGURED AS A FH-432 OR FH-1782 DRUM. Continue reading →

If you aren’t running Ubuntu, it’s time to upgrade. Just kidding. On any other Linux system this is probably going to be as easy (I hope) or gentoo-style (aka difficult and useless frustration). Two utilities you might need are FUSE and SSHFS if you’re going the frustrating route.

Thanks for reading, I’ll be writing about how to get the iPhone talking with Amarok and how to get ringtones uploaded very soon.

So right there, my article I had planned about unlocking the iPhone using Linux – simply not possible, as of right now. According to Martin Aumueller, a moderator at the iPhone amarok forums,

“If you manage to get it working it won’t be easy at all:

Other than a regular ipod, the iphone does not work as a ‘usb mass storage device’. This means you can’t just mount it as a hard disk. However, it appears that people have managed to hack their iphone so that they are able to install arbitrary software on it, in particular a ssh server. Then it is possible to expose the iphones file system and mount it via fuse as sshfs. On the gtkpod-devel mailing list you could read that the format of the data on the iphone is very similar to an ipod. So they might be able to handle that shortly. As soon as the gtkpod guys have libgpod working with the iphone, you could try to compile Amarok against the updated libgpod and try to get it working.”

So I checked out the libgpod SVN, and found they had a version that worked once you had SSH running on the iPhone – which means it’s kinda pointless to use a Linux box to try and get things unlocked, because to get SSH running, you need Window or Mac, which is confirmed by Eric Betts (who also has a quick guide how to get gtkpod working), a CS major at OSU – go Beavers!

“Linux users have been able to sync with the iPhone for awhile now. We just mount the iPhone’s FS wirelessly via sshfs, load GTKPod and sync …wirelessly.

The current SVN version of libgpod (the backend that manipulates iTunesDB) has recently implemented full support for artwork, video, calendar, contacts, podcasts etc. for the iPhone, iPT.

You can also use gnupod. In fact, with that I’ve written a script that runs on my phone that checks what wifi network i’m connected to and if it’s my home network (where my computer is) it automatically initiates syncing.

That means that whenever I get home, I don’t have to sit down at my computer, or even take my phone out of my pocket — everything syncs back and forth automatically. Beautiful.

I’m currently in the process of porting libgpod to the iPhone environment so we can integrate over-the-air downloads into iTunesDB. That basically means we can then write a GUI frontend to bashpodder (podcast client) and automatically download/sync podcasts on-the-go.

My next project will be to get internet radio running…

Shoutcast on-the-go will be sweet.”

That’s it from me, for now. Here are a bunch of links that should get you started unlocking your iPhone. I’m going to detail later on how to get the sshfs and libgpod svn working on Ubuntu.

First, a little explanation may be needed as to what is happening in between our computers, Comcast and the Internet.
Comcast is using a packet filtering platform called Sandvine. This platform is a at its core, a Quality of Service system that has legitimate uses, such as giving high priority to Xbox Live communications and VOIP packets.

Unfortunately, Comcast has decided to use Sandvine (some say illegally) to impersonate us and send a reset packet (known as an RST flag), which is exactly like the Chinese goverment filters the internet! (PDF)

TorrentFreak hinted on August 22nd, is that someone was working on a fix for Comcast users.

“…we know that at least two BitTorrent client developers are including this fix in their next update.” -TorrentFreak

It’s two weeks later, where is the fix!? And just exactly how do you find out if you’re being throttled by Comcast? And how can we figure out how to avoid this traffic shaping? Continue reading →